In digital photography a charge-coupled-device CCD sensor can gather light from several million local directions simultaneously to generate detailed images. In contrast, most laser range finders, such as a light detection and ranging system (LIDAR) scan or rotate laser beams and measure the time of flight (TOF) in much smaller number of directions. This sequential measurement approach limits the total number of range measurements per second. Hence a LIDAR that scans a field of view (FOV) in a uniform deterministic manner can provide poor angular resolution. For example, consider a LIDAR with an angular range of 40 degrees elevation and 360 degrees azimuthal that is rotating at 10 Hz and generating 1 million laser measurements per second. If the measurements are spread uniformly in the FOV (e.g. 40×360 degrees) the angular resolution would be 0.38 degrees in both the elevation and azimuthal directions. At 50 m range from the LIDAR such an angular resolution produces range measurements with a spacing of 30 cm. This measurement spacing (i.e. angular resolution) can be insufficient for identifying the detailed boundaries of objects.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,383,753 to Templeton discloses a LIDAR with dynamically adjustable angular resolution, but only describes dynamic angular velocity in a single axis for a rotating LIDAR. U.S. Pat. No. 9,383,753 further assumes a rotating LIDAR and does not provide for arbitrary laser orientation within a scan. U.S. Pat. No. 9,383,753 modifies the angular resolution of subsequent scans based on previous scans in part because the disclosed LIDAR has angular velocity that precludes rapid direction reversals and changes. Hence, dynamically adapting LIDAR measurement density within a scan, to improve the accuracy of object boundary detection in the FOV remains a challenge.